AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



273 



THE WESTERN MEADOW-^LARK, 



One of the most common birds of our eastern lowlands and hillside 

 pastures is the lyrical meadow-lark. Every person who uses his eyes 

 has seen this bird's golden breast flashing in the sun as he sits on a 

 fence stake and pipes his blithe, wavering melody. 



You are doubtless aware that the familiar lark has a cousin which 

 chooses our western prairies and plains and mountain parks for his 

 dwelling place ? He is known as the western meadow-lark, and has the 

 Latin adjective neglecta affixed to his name to distinguish him from his 

 his eastern relative. 



There is slight dilference in the appearance of the two birds. Indeed, 

 unless you had them in hand, or were very close to them in the open 

 field with a good glass, you could not be absolutely sure whether any 

 given birds were easterners or westerners. 



However, they are not precise copies of each other. For instance, in 

 the eastern form the yellow of the throat does not reach out laterally 

 over the malar region — that is, the region of the cheek — whereas in the 

 western form it does. In general the upper parts of the western bird 

 are paler and grayer and the black markings less distinct and confluent 

 than are those of our eastern piper. The flanks and lower tail-coverts 

 of the eastern lark are more or less heavily washed with buff, while 

 these parts of the western type are white, only faintly tinged with buff, 

 if at all. 



Thus it will be seen that there are three clear external markings 

 whereby you may tell the two species apart. 



But, much as it might puzzle you at times to distinguish between them 

 by their outward appearance, you would experience no such difficulty 

 the moment the minstrel of the west opened his mandibles to sing you 

 an aria. One spring I went down into Oklahoma to study the birds, 

 and found both kinds of meadow-larks in great abundance on the broad 

 prairies, and again and again I heard them singing — or, rather, whist- 

 ling — at the same time. The following paragraph is quoted from my 

 notes taken on the ground : 



" Sitting on a weed-stalk, or a fence post, or the grassy prairie, the 

 easterner whistles or flutes his clear, two-part melody, which seems to 

 fly like an undulating shaft across the fields ; his cousin, the westerner, 



